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Galician Gypsy Encampment, Wandsworth, 1911
In the first week of
September 1911, the British press and the residents of south London were
treated to a spectacle as vivid and entertaining as any sideshow in
Earl's Court, when a party of about 150 Austrian Galician Gypsies made
their home in a field by the side of a house in Garratt Lane, Wandsworth.
This group of Gypsies
was only one of a number of large contingents of foreign Gypsies who
traveled through Britain in the 1900s, causing quite a stir among the 'gorgio'
population.
The 'Zingari',
as these Austrian Galician Gypsies were known, were highly-skilled
coppersmiths and performers and had left Galicia fifteen years before to
wander through Europe.
The band
was divided into three national groups - Russian, Hungarian and Polish.
These Gypsies, who were multilingual (speaking German, Polish, Russian,
French, Spanish, Romani and English), announced their intention to stay
in England for a year or so before moving to South America
.
The Austrian Galicians
were hoping to get an engagement for a troupe of about fifteeen singers
at one of the London music halls some time during their stay. Their
elderly queen and overall leader, Maria Petrovna -
described as 'garishly dressed and loaded with coins and barbaric
jewellry' - gave an interview to the Daily Express, in Russian
through an interpreter, in which she described her band as coppersmiths
skilled in the manufacture of pots and pans. She also commented 'There
is nothing we want, we are just like fishes in the water. Only I do not
like the English meat, the beef and mutton are so stiff that I will not
buy them and so we must eat chicken and pork every day.'
